Search Site

Download A Political Theology of Nature by Peter Scott PDF

By Peter Scott

Supplying a Christian reaction to ecological situation, this ebook argues that our present-day ecological difficulties are a result of displacement of the triune God and the next separation of humanity from nature. Peter Scott contends that this example might be decisively addressed simply inside theology. Drawing insights from ecology, ecofeminism, and social and socialist ecologies, he proposes a typical realm of God, nature and humanity. either Trinitarian and political, this universal realm bargains a theological cause for an ecological democracy, based at the ecological renewal secured via Christ's resurrection.

Imagine how diverse your way of life will be if you happen to knew the way to stroll within the Spirit. you may be on the correct position on the correct time, keep away from pitfalls, meet the best humans, make higher judgements. jogging within the Spirit, or being Spirit- led, is feasible for all of God's young children. yet to a few, strolling within the Spirit is a secret.

Manichaeism, as soon as the nation faith of Persia and lengthy a full of life contender for converts through the historical close to East, is better remembered for the simplicity of its teachings approximately divine strength. For Manicheans, the universe used to be governed via a Lord of sunshine and a Lord of Darkness, who fought constantly for supremacy.

Such commitments, stated brieﬂy and baldly, hint at some of the theological principles operative in this book. In my view, the theological task is reconstructive rather than constructive. That is, I am committed to the basic shape of Christian doctrine in the theological consideration of nature. Such a decision involves judgments about natural theology, the doctrines themselves and the dynamic articulated by Christianity. 46 Instead, the relation between humanity and nature requires fundamental reconsideration; the metaphors of dominion and stewardship are not central to my position.

Last, the appeal to the natural sciences is considered to be the way in which theology secures its credentials as a public discipline. Yet, in fact, the ‘publicness’ is speciﬁed by the natural sciences. A political theology of nature, as I have described it, directs theological attention to the relations operative in the common realm of God, nature and humanity. The rationale of this attention is Christological. Yet there remains the important matter of the theological account of the ‘world come of age’ by way of a theological engagement with the ‘secular’ politics of nature.

In the interests of comprehensiveness, two further moves may be reported. One approach takes the form of trying to raise the lower side of the dualism to the upper side. In debates on ecology this takes the form of the afﬁrmation of technological ﬁxes, the promise of consumer goods for all: for, if the dualism has supported the unequal appropriation of ‘nature’s goods’, then the resolution must be to spread goods more widely which in turn means greater reproduction. A different strategy, associated with postmodernism, dissolves all identities, those of humanity and non-human nature alike.